Jayalalithaa: Her hero’s rival

Thirty eight is a nice age – not too young to be taken light, not too old to be written off. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) drove home this point strongly as it celebrated its 38th birthday in style in Madurai on Monday.

For those who watched AIADMK prima donna J Jayalalithaa taking the temple town by storm on Monday, she was fighting two villains—her bete noire M Karunanidhi and his son MK Alagiri. But, for those who observed her closely, she was also fighting her hero, MGR. J Jayalalithaa spent one half of her 100-minute speech bashing Alagiri and the other, Karunanidhi. There was virtually no mention of her mentor and tinsel co-star MGR. Jayalalithaa has realised that it is time she graduated from a beneficiary of legacy to a legend herself.

AIADMK has always remained unipolar. It revolved and evolved around MGR even after his death on the Christmas eve of 1987. Twenty-two years later, having emerged from the shadows of MGR and established herself as the prima donna, Jayalalithaa is in the process of projecting herself as the best leader that could happen to the party – better than MGR. This could be a hard thing for the legions of MGR-fans to swallow, but Jayalalithaa appears to be well on her way to prove that legends are stronger living than dead.

When MGR founded the ADMK on October 17, 1972, it was a logical conclusion of a carefully crafted past. MGR was a relentless designer of his future, till fate abruptly interfered in the form of a brain tumour in 1985 and snatched away his life two years later. His difficult days with M Karunanidhi in the DMK, and Indira Gandhi’s tactics to prop up a worthy opponent to anti-Emergency forces sympathiser Karunanidhi made the formation of ADMK possible. MGR was the star campaigner for the DMK, but was never given a cabinet berth. Finally, MGR took the plunge.

He was just the hero Tamil Nadu badly wanted in real. He never played a negative role. On screen, MGR never smoked or drank and always treated his women with respect. Superstar MGR was the harbinger of hope, warrior of the oppressed and messiah of the masses. He had sparkling eyes, till those trademark dark glasses hid them. He was fair.

There was at least one MGR manram (fans club) in every ward of a municipality. At the political level, too, there was enough space for a party like the ADMK. The DMK was being seen as a party predominantly of such castes as Mudaliars and Vellalars. Other castes such as Kallars, Mukkulathurs and Dalits were getting an inferior treatment in the DMK and it was only natural for them to rally behind the ADMK. The ADMK won the Dindigul Lok Sabha by-election in 1973 and the Pondicherry Assembly polls a year later.

On September 12, 1976, MGR added the prefix ‘All India’ to the name Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. In 1977, the party stormed to power in Tamil Nadu. As the chief minister, too, MGR endeared himself to the people with humane gestures. MGR is said to have instructed the police to go soft on bicycle riders and rickshawallahs, while booking erring drivers of cars. His noon-meal scheme was a trendsetter.

“He had experienced poverty and hunger,” Cholai, who had been a speech-writer for Jayalalithaa, said about MGR when I was writing a piece on AIADMK’s 30th birthday. “And that is why he introduced the noon-meal scheme. It was not just for the school kids; even elderly people were given food.” The MGR-government was not free of corruption charges, but whenever there were allegations MGR did not hesitate to take action against the accused. As the charismatic leader proved efficient in governance too, the AIADMK struck deeper roots in the state. Tamil Nadu once again proved that good governance does not always ensure electoral wins, when the AIADMK came a cropper in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections. The DMK tactfully tied up with the Congress and the combine walked away with 38 seats, leaving just two for AIADMK, which drew a blank in the simultaneous Assembly elections in Pondicherry.

MGR faced the first major challenge in his political career when Karunanidhi got cosier with Indira Gandhi and got the AIADMK government dismissed on grounds of having “lost the people’s mandate” in the 1980 Lok Sabha polls. In fact, that was a tit-for-tat Indira Gandhi did to a similar action of the Janata Party government that came to power in 1977. For a party, till then riding a popularity wave, the action came as a catalyst to gather itself and emerge stronger. MGR went campaigning in the election that ensued with a simple question to the people: “Naan enna thappu seythen? (What wrong did I do?)” The people answered with a resounding mandate and MGR barged back to power. The AIADMK started looking invincible.

But then, that’s what Jayalalithaa too appeared to be in 2001, when her party won 134 of the 140 Assembly seats. However, in the 2006 polls, the party’s tally fell to 61. It had lost every by-election and local body polls that happened since. What is becoming increasingly obvious is Jayalalithaa’s bid to renovate the party around herself, relegating MGR’s image to a fading backdrop. In fact, she started on this project immediately after MGR’s demise, or perhaps even before that. People like Panruti Ramachandran, K Rajaram and Thirunavukarasu, who were close to MGR and who later helped Jayalalithaa nullify the splinter group headed by Janaki Ramachandran, were dropped after their utility was over. Today, AIADMK is a party of Jayalalithaa-loyalists.

Jayalalithaa, however, did not demolish the MGR legend in one stroke. She realises that it is the mighty combination of the three initials and the ‘two leaves’ symbol that are the mainstays besides her own cultivated charisma. So, there have been MGR images all over during election days. When MGR was campaigning for the DMK, his cap was carried atop campaign vehicles where the man could not physically be present. As late as in the 2001 Assembly elections, Jayalalithaa extensively used the MGR image, but MGR buntings were conspicuously fewer at the Madurai meeting.

An analysis of Jayalalithaa’s moulding as a politician reveals that she had her eyes set on the numero uno slot right from the beginning. Cholai had recollected: “Jaya was so ambitious that she wanted to become the chief minister when MGR was hospitalised.” This is substantiated by a letter – frequently reproduced by the DMK organ Murasoli – she wrote to Rajiv Gandhi pleading that she be sworn in the chief minister since the ailing MGR could not discharge the duties. There are enough indications that beneath the cloak of the symbiotic relationship between MGR and Jayalalithaa, all was not well. MGR was indeed impressed by the articulation of her reel-life heroine, and felt that she could contribute to his political growth. That is why he brought her into the party in 1982 and made her a member of the state high-level committee on noon meal scheme and later a Rajya Sabha member and the propaganda secretary of the party.

“But, at one point of time, when MGR came to know that she was getting too ambitious, he did not project her further,” Panruti Ramachandran, a minister in the MGR cabinet, had said. “There were times when MGR did not speak to her for long days.” Cholai recollected an earlier incident, which put off MGR. “In one of the media interviews, Jayalalithaa went to the extent of saying that MGR owed his popularity to her. It upset MGR so much that he dropped her from the movie Ulagam Suttrum Valiban, and paired himself with Manjula.”

Panruti in an earlier interview had spoken about the differences between MGR and Jayalalithaa. “When MGR was in Brooklyn (1984) to take treatment, Jayalalitha was sent for electioneering throughout the state. Jayalalithaa thought the huge crowds that gathered to express their sympathies with MGR had actually come to see her. She insisted that she be made the chief minister. This upset MGR. He told me we could use her for the party, but should not allow her to rule. A meeting was arranged between MGR and Jaya at the CMO. She came and fought with MGR asking for deputy chief ministership and left in a huff. ‘Partheergala,’ MGR told me, to which I replied it was her political immaturity.”

Panruti said that after MGR’s death, he, with the consent of Navalar Nedunchezhiyan, announced Jayalalithaa as the general secretary of the party when MGR’s widow Janaki Ramachandran wanted to take over. The party split into Janaki and Jaya factions and Janaki faction took over two weeks after MGR passed away, but the government was dismissed on January 30, 1988. Two days later, Sasikala moved into Poes Garden. Jayalalithaa realised the power of the ‘two leaves’ symbol, when it was frozen by the election commission in the Assembly elections on January 21, 1989. While the Janaki faction bit the dust, Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK garnered just 27 seats under the ‘cock’ symbol. She patched up with an already disheartened Janaki and got back the ‘two leaves.’

Jayalalithaa got the right break on March 25, 1989, when she was ill-treated by the ruling DMK in the Assembly. The image of Jayalalithaa coming out of the Assembly with her hair dishevelled, Kannaki-like, and vowing to return to the House “only as the chief minister” gave her the image of a woman scorned by a male chauvinistic majority. That paid off. She did return to the Assembly, as promised, as the chief minister in 1991. The AIADMK, under the powerful lady leader looked all set to scale new heights.

That could have been a reality, if Jayalalithaa had not mistaken the people’s mandate for a license to unleash a reign of abrasive power. Her five-year tenure was steeped so much in questionable deeds and deals that the AIADMK was wiped out in the 1996 Assembly elections, what with Jayalalithaa herself losing the election. GK Moopanar’s decision to walk out of the Congress to form the Tamil Maanila Congress and Rajnikanth’s clarion call to “defeat the evil forces” helped DMK come back to power.

Jayalalithaa could claim the credit for AIADMK’s landslide victories in the 1991 and 2001 elections, but she cannot compare it with MGR’s victory in 1977. Such was his following that his candidate, a certain Ukkamchand from northern part of the country, won hands down from the Mathuranthagam constituency.

However mighty may be her hold over the masses, it remains a fact that Jayalalithaa had won elections as the leader of grand alliances. In 1991, the AIADMK was in the company of the Congress and the elections happened just 25 days after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on May 21. As the sympathy wave took Jayalalithaa to chief ministership, Congress was the loser. In the 2001 polls, too, the Congress was part of the AIADMK combine. So were the PMK, TMC, CPI, CPI (M) and the Muslim League. In other words, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK has never proved its own strength.

But when it comes to her party, she wouldn’t allow a second rung leadership. Party leaders are kept in a state of perpetual fear of loss. Having discarded AIADMK’s Dravidian roots and now trying to overshadow the MGR legacy, Jayalalithaa proves that she is untiringly ambitious. And that is not bad.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, assistant resident editor of The Times Of India in Chennai, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things.

If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycoph. . .